


Alone

by spinsters_grave



Series: Voltron Angst Week 2k17 [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate universe it's o k a y it's not canon compliant, Blood, Gen, Violence, injuries, stab wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 00:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10674006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsters_grave/pseuds/spinsters_grave
Summary: Alt Title: The World Was Wide EnoughSummary: His condition wasn’t very stable. A stab wound will do that to you.





	Alone

 

He knew, with sudden clarity, that he was going to die.

 

Keith hadn’t thought he would. Nothing up to this moment was  _ real,  _ exactly. Not that sword the traveller carried, not that morning when Shirogane left. 

 

Keith suddenly remembered Shirogane lying in front of him, like Keith was lying on the ground now. It was just a flash, but Keith groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. 

 

Shirogane had left him behind. Of course, he and Keith had left Voltron first. Keith was planning to leave by himself, but Shirogane wanted to come for no reason at all. They left behind their armor and bayards, since they didn’t want the universe to be defenseless. And it must have worked. Keith heard stories from people passing through of Voltron that he was sure he hadn’t taken part of. 

 

And Shirogane had gone back. He slipped out in the dead of night and it was just Keith on their desert planet. He fended for himself, but a group of travellers had  _ stabbed  _ him and now he was going to die. 

 

Keith held onto the wound as tightly as he could. He didn’t want to lose any more blood than he already had. 

 

He came to realize he couldn’t get up. Keith delayed looking at his wound until he absolutely had to, and it was… gaping. Caked with dried blood. Half of his side might have been sheared away—that could have been an exaggeration, but Keith could feel raw muscle, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. And it hurt. And with the adrenaline fading away, it was getting worse.

 

And Keith lay in the middle of the desert. 

 

He should just accept his fate. He was going to die, on a desert planet far away from home, with no one coming for him and no way to treat his wound. It could get infected, or he could bleed out. Keith didn’t know which one he’d prefer. 

 

Keith kept a small bag with him at all times, just in case. It had supplies and a few more personal things, like his knife and a pressed flower he traded for. It was yellow and bright and pretty.

 

The bag lay a few feet away, the contents spilling out. Keith narrowed his eyes at it. 

 

About twenty minutes later, Keith’s flesh was about to crawl out of skin and his wound stung with sand particles, but the bag was in front of him. In it was his recording device he was saving for something special. 

 

If this moment wasn’t special, he didn’t know what was. Keith wanted to use it before he died, just so no one else could. 

 

It worked like an Earth recorder. You clicked the top button, and turned the lens your way, and violà. Keith stared the camera down, breathing a little hard.

 

“Hello,” he told it. “I don’t exactly have long left. You know, it almost doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”

 

Keith didn’t know who he was talking to for a moment, but then the Red Lion floated to the top of his mind. Keith blinked. His eyes felt a little hot.

 

“It’s been an honor flying with you,” he told her. “You’re so- I never thought  _ I’d  _ ever do anything good like Voltron. I mean, c’mon. I’m an orphan with a record. It’s a miracle I got into the Garrison in the first place.”

 

Keith snorted. Mistake, yes, but something stupid from his childhood reared it’s head. “Neither of my parents showed up for my birth,” Keith quoted. “That’s a Dr Doofenshmirtz quote.

 

“I’m sorry for leaving you,” Keith told the Red Lion. “I think I needed to. I might have thought I was coming back to you, but now- I don’t know.”

 

Keith spoke for close to an hour. Apology after apology, and it wasn’t near enough. Small stories—he’d call them anecdotes, if he was still in high school. He could get away with more familiar language (colloquial language) out in space. Eventually, he was in too much pain to continue. He gave the recording device a small smile and wished it would find its way to the Red Lion. She’d want to see it. 

 

It was almost midnight. Keith gazed at the stars above him, trying to find lines and patterns in them. Find a constellation, give it a name and a story. That’s what he and Shiro did before- before  _ Shirogane _ left. Keith found their water bearer. He had wanted to call it Aquarius, but Shirogane wanted to call it Cellie. 

 

“I don’t know why,” Shiro had said. “The Black Lion wants me to call it Cellie.”

 

“Alright,” Keith said. He gazed up at Cellie and breathed against the hole in his side. 

 

There was a glimmer in the sky. Keith knew what it meant—an incoming ship—but he didn’t know  _ why  _ a ship would be coming in this late. Deliriously, he thought of Shirogane, and that led him to thinking about the other paladins.

 

That could be the Castle of Lions. That could be highly unlikely. But it  _ could  _ be, and that was what Keith agonized about as darkness swam around the edges of his vision. 

 

It  _ had  _ to be the Castle. They’d come for him. Is it the Castle? They would have no reason to come for him. He  _ left  _ them, he’s all alone, he shouldn’t expect anyone to save him. He wanted someone to save him. 

 

The recording device turned itself off ages ago. Keith didn’t spare it any mind except to hold it in his lap with his free hand. 

 

His other hand was covered with dried blood. The desert planet didn’t have a moon, so he couldn’t look at his own blood in the moonlight. He looked at it in the starlight instead and thought about how warm it had felt and how cold it felt now.

 

And then that encroaching darkness finally overtook him, and he never  _ was  _ able to tell if that really was the Castle or if he was going to die alone. 

 

***

 

_ “It’s been an honor flying with you,”  _ Keith’s voice said. Allura listened to it with her hands clasped in front of her. She had had to sit down when they found him. 

 

_ “You’re so-”  _ Keith’s voice broke. He took a short breath, and Shiro placed a hand on Allura’s back. He always seemed to know when she needed support, most times before she knew herself. 

 

Shiro was the one who convinced Allura to go back for Keith. “He’s just confused,” Shiro had said. “He needed- I don’t know. To be alone, maybe.”

 

“Very well,” Allura had said back. 

 

_ “I never thought  _ I’d  _ ever do anything as good as Voltron,”  _ Keith’s voice said. 

 

Keith’s body had been caked with a combination of sand and dried blood. Shiro was the first one on the ground, Hunk and Lance right after him. None of them knew what to do. Keith had passed out, and Hunk hesitantly felt for a pulse- “It’s there, but it’s weak,” he called. 

 

“Oh thank god,” Shiro said all in a rush, tension fleeing his shoulders like spiders fleeing a burning house. 

 

_ “C’mon. I’m an orphan with a record,”  _ Keith’s voice said. 

 

Keith’s body lay in a pod. Allura almost didn’t want Keith to get this kind of treatment. He  _ left  _ them. For six of their Earth months. There wasn’t a way around that. 

 

Of course, he was Galra. You needed to expect that kind of self-preservation, cut-and-run attitude from someone with that blood. Allura tried not to think that it was a bad thing. 

 

But Shiro came back, and he told Allura to trust Keith. And Allura trusted Shiro. She needed to trust Shiro. He explained why they left, as much as he could with Keith’s Galran tendency to lie and keep secrets. 

 

_ “It’s a miracle I even got into the Garrison in the first place,”  _ Keith’s voice said, uncaring or unknowing of the inner turmoil Allura was facing.

 

They didn’t know if Keith was going to make it. The pod was struggling to make his body whole again without him bleeding out. Human bodies were so fragile. 

 

He’d been in there for two days. Like a coma patient, his chances of survival fell the longer he was in there. 

 

Allura clasped her hands in front of her and didn’t know if she should wish for his life or his death. Shiro gripped her shoulder tightly for a moment, then his hand slipped away, and she was on her own. 

 

All alone. 

 

END

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey in case anyone was wondering why I decided to call the water bearer constellation Cellie, look at my Zarkon-centric story One Day. She’s a major character in it, but it’s a pretty sad story, so proceed with caution.
> 
>  
> 
> This is also a continuation of the ‘Smile’ fic. They’re in the same AU that’s slowly tearing my life apart.


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